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Thursday, 1 November 2012

In my defence...

Timing is a
tricky thing. As most of you will remember, after the Arsenal vs QPR game on
Saturday, I wrote a piece voicing my concern at Arsenal’s recent struggle to
find goals. In the piece, which you can read below, I not only berate the team’s
failure to score, but also commend them for their solid defensive form so far
this season. The day after writing the blog, which has since also been
posted on the4thofficial.co.uk, Arsenal took on Reading in the fourth round of
the League Cup.

Anyone
reading my blog after this game probably thought I was being sarcastic. However,
I believed and still believe that my argument was and is still valid and
concerning. Therefore I decided that in order to settle any doubts, I should
take a minute to explain why the points I made remain plausible.

First
off, my entire argument is wholly concerned only with Arsenal’s league form. At no point did I make any mention
of the team’s performance in the Champions’ League or League Cup. The League
Cup in particular is a unique anomaly in English football. For several years
now, the top teams have used it primarily as an opportunity to give youngsters
and reserve players a taste of first-team football. This has filtered down to
the lower Premier League clubs so that even Southampton made eleven changes to
the team that played their last league match before their cup game on Tuesday.

The point being
made here is that when the Arsenal contingent at the Reading match sang ‘we
want our Arsenal back’ at half-time, they were right: the Arsenal team playing
was literally, not just figuratively, a different team. Not a single player who
started the QPR match began for Arsenal against Reading, the most sorely missed
clearly being defensive-organiser Thomas Vermaelen who is apparently more
crucial to our back four than we knew.

On
top of this, smaller teams with nothing to lose are bound to attack a lot more
in League Cup ties. Reading were always going to come out firing on all
cylinders, something our less-experienced players were clearly unprepared for.
Manchester City also conceded four goals to Aston Villa in the third round of
the cup this year. Liverpool and Tottenham were this week knocked out by
Swansea and Norwich respectively. This is what is different about League Cup
matches. More goals, more upsets. There has never been a game with twelve or
more goals in Premier League history. The Reading game was (perhaps sadly) an exception
to our season so far. Five of the goals Arsenal scored were after the
eighty-eighth minute against an understandably exhausted team.

That
said, no matter which of our defenders were playing, if you’re wearing the
shirt, you are an Arsenal player and shipping four first half goals to any team
in any competition is unacceptable. However, while there are clearly still
defensive areas that need serious work, I do not believe that our performance
in this one unbelievable game is indicative of how our Premier League campaign
has gone so far.

While
I still believe in the strength of our defence and that our goal-scoring must
improve, I now look ahead to our next fixture. Manchester United are the top-scorers
in the league so far and they also have the second-worst defensive record in
the top half of the table. There is therefore the likelihood that my hypothesis
will be put to the test once more this weekend. I only hope that it is just our
attack who will prove me wrong this time, not our defence.